Page 12 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

and eyes of another person
in certain belief that that
person will hear and see
everything you said and stay
mentally focused for the
entire message. The listener
must then decode your
message correctly, picking
your meanings (not theirs)
from the archive of meanings
they have accumulated based
on their previous experience
(not yours). The listener must
also avoid misinterpreting
any of your words because of
unintended and unconscious
nonverbals and then translate
this verbal message into the
same picture in her mind as
you have in yours, without
Lecture 1: The Magic of Everyday Communication
any distracting internal
thoughts, feelings, or beliefs
of her own. © Hemera/Thinkstock.

Communication experts are Successful communication is a much more
aware of how humorously complicated process than we tend to realize.
disconnected the common
view of communication can be from the complex reality. Here are the
amusing communication “laws” written by Osmo A. Wiio, a Finnish
professor of communication: (1) Communication usually fails, except
by accident. (2) If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be
interpreted in a manner that maximizes damage. (3) There is always someone
who knows better than you what you meant by your message. Think of these
as Murphy’s laws of talk: If anything can go wrong, it will. Rest assured that
throughout this course, I will point out such pitfalls and give you ways to
overcome them. Ŷ

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